Typically, IT assets are managed in an enterprise with users assuming different roles and responsibilities. For example, a Software Engineer may use a desktop computer at the office and a laptop while traveling, whereas, a system support professional may use a PDA to correspond with clients. Some of the software installed on a given IT asset may be mandated by the enterprise, such as, virus detection, automatic backup, etc. There may also be instances of non-mandated software installed on the IT asset. Examples of non-mandated software may be project management software, document management software, database software, etc. The enterprise may have granted the developer a license of such non-mandated software or the developer may have installed a personal copy of the software (in this situation the user would be considered the custodian of the asset and is thus responsible for it).
Furthermore, a manager of a development team(s) is responsible for ensuring that adequate software and hardware resources are available for the development team(s). In this role, the manager may assign and/or authorize the use of software to the developers. Such authorization may occur at an individual level (where a user is authorized to install and use project management software), or authorization may occur at a group level to a group of employees working on same project. In such a scenario, the manager is responsible for the usage of the group, acting as an employee group owner, or the like.
Additionally, a group of servers may be used to manage a website of the enterprise (there is typically no individual user of these servers). The operating system and other software are executed with a generic sign-on privilege such as ‘Admin’ rather than individual sign-on such as ‘John Doe’; however, there might be a manager which is responsible for both the hardware associated with the servers, as well as the software being executed on the servers. Such a role is typically referred to as a device group owner.
Thus, an IT asset user can be simultaneously a custodian of a PDA, an employee group owner responsible for authorization of project management software, a member of group that is authorized to use web authorization software, and an owner of a device group that includes servers used in, for example, a QA environment. As such, the associated IP (or IT) asset information is dispersed in many locations for a single user, which makes it incredibly difficult to manage IT assets. Current IT asset management product identifies all of these roles that can be assumed by an IT asset user details of all these roles and associated attributes are available only in discrete pages. A consolidated presentation for the end user is lacking in current systems, as well as a consolidated view of hardware attributes and installed software for an IT asset. In an effort to provide customers with a superior ownership experience, it is important to be able to provide this consolidated self service view.